After more than a decade shaping modern romance, Justin McLeod will leave Hinge behind Launching his next project: another dating app with artificial intelligence called Overtone.
Today, Hinge has more than 30 million users, and a date is set every two seconds. But in 2011, when it launched, MacLeod was just a young Harvard Business School student when he came up with the idea for an app “designed to delete.” The fresh-faced entrepreneur in his 20s is so eager for people to sign up for his app that he even bribes them with chocolates.
At the time, online dating was mostly done on the desktop and required real effort. The idea of swiping on your phone to find the love of your life (or a one-night stand) may seem foreign.
So convincing fellow students — who have no shortage of opportunities to meet people in classes, dormitories and at parties — to sign up for Hinge was a challenge, McLeod said. wealth.
“I remember the days of running around the university library in Washington, D.C., and the library at Georgetown University, bribing kids with KitKats to try my app,” he laughs. “We’re getting a few dozen users a day — if that’s the case, maybe.”
Financing Hinge also required a lot of grit, with MacLeod recalling that he had to “beg and borrow a lot” to get the app off the ground.
“I’m out there making connections, talking to as many people as I can, and taking money from anyone who’s willing to give me money. Sometimes that’s what it takes,” he said. “I’m collecting — I’m — literally, $5,000 checks and $10,000 checks to start Hinge.”
Hinge CEO’s big break comes with job offer from McKinsey
Logging in is hard enough these days practice While studying – not to mention going directly into full-time employment after graduation. But for McLeod, that wasn’t the case: He hadn’t even completed his second year of business school when McKinsey offered him a position in its coveted graduate program.
A career in consulting will put McLeod’s salary in the six figures, with Glassdoor estimating the average annual salary for consultants at $173,000 to $233,000. McLeod’s signing bonus alone was $12,000.
It proved to be the big break he needed — to finally let Hinge take off.
“I was able to postpone the offer for about a couple of years,” he recalled, while adding that he “borrowed” the money to develop his app.
“Once Hinge starts to be successful and they see that I’m the founder of it, they say, ‘You’re probably not going to come here as an analyst, right?’ Of course, at that point I have to pay the money back.”
MacLeod could have had a comfortable career at McKinsey, so why did he choose the high-risk entrepreneurial path?
“I turned down my offer and started working on Hinge, really because I was so passionate about the idea. Once I started thinking about it, it was hard to stop. I really knew this was what I was supposed to be doing.”
Of course, it paid off: By 2015, Hinge had raised $26.35 million, and its previous estimated valuation was $75.5 million. competition group Acquired the company from McLeod for an undisclosed amount.
The founder treats himself and his family almost $13 million apartment Soon after in New York. At the same time, hinges were introduced $396 million 2023, last year and projected US$550 million last year.
Advice for Gen Z entrepreneurial graduates
Like McLeod, today’s young people don’t dream of continuing a 9-to-5 job after college or moving up the corporate ladder. Research Always make it clear that they want to be their own boss.
They’re already making those dreams a reality: in fact, the second-fastest growing job among Gen Z graduates right now is “Founder,” according to LinkedIn.
His advice to young entrepreneurs? “You have to be hopelessly idealistic and ruthlessly practical at the same time—that’s how you create something great and successful.”
“There are people who also fall into the hopelessly idealistic camp, who have dreams but never make something happen, and there are people who also fall into the ruthlessly practical camp, who don’t do things that are that big or game-changing,” McLeod explains.
Instead, he said successful founders like him are constantly balancing the two: essentially dreaming big, but “focusing on very practical day-to-day realities in order to make the dream a reality.”
Meanwhile, for Gen Zers who don’t know what they want to do after school, his advice is to stop overthinking it – just get to work, whether that’s starting your own business or giving it a try in the rat race.
“I think people who are too self-involved in, like, what is my career? What am I going to do? They miss the opportunity to develop a passion and interest in something in the world,” he said.
“I would never have figured out what I wanted if I had just sat there and brooded. I had to work in healthcare for a summer and realize that wasn’t the case. I had looked at a few other startup ideas before Hinge approached me, and it took a lot of time to figure out what I didn’t like or what didn’t resonate with me. But each time, I got a little smarter and a little closer.”
A version of this story was originally published on wealth network On September 22, 2024.